BUSINESS DAILY AFRICA
The CEO and co-founder of Nigerian payments company Flutterwave, Olugbenga Agboola, flew into Kenya this week amid efforts to unfreeze his Sh6.6 billion and lift a Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) embargo on the firm.
In a space of just one year, the start-up has seen its Kenya operations — which was the second-largest market after Nigeria— brought to a halt, with the High Court freezing Sh6.6 billion on money laundering fears and the CBK ordering banks to cut links with the firm.
Mr Agboola landed in Nairobi to meet the firm’s local team and seek an audience with the CBK, which in December asked his firm to make a fresh licence operation.
The CBK had in July ordered local banks to stop dealing with Flutterwave, arguing it was not licensed as its accounts got frozen under the country’s anti-money laundering laws.
Mr Agboola’s visit coincided with a verdict by the High Court that on Thursday dismissed an application from over 2,000 Nigerians who sought a share of the frozen Sh6.6 billion.
The Nigerians said in a petition that they were swindled of billions of shillings through a sports betting platform that used Flutterwave to process the payments.
The dismissal of the suit marked another victory for Flutterwave after Kenya’s Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) in December withdrew from the case in which it secured orders freezing the billions in 29 accounts at GTB, Equity and Ecobank denominated in Kenya shillings, US dollars, euros and Sterling pounds.
The dismissal of the suit and ARA’s withdrawal have brought Flutterwave closer to accessing the Sh6.5 billion and shaking off the money laundering tag.
“CBK invited us in December to reapply for a money remittance and payments service provider licenses,” Mr Agboola said in an interview with the Business Daily in Nairobi.
“Kenya is the bedrock of mobile money. We have seen the gap and have raised capital to invest here. Without Nairobi, building a global mobile money payments system is not possible,” he added from Flutterwave’s Kenya base in Nairobi’s Riverside Drive.
Flutterwave has described the Kenya trip by the 37-year-old as a “normal course of doing business” that the techie takes quarterly.
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